Driver Installation / Configuration
Driver InstallationDriver installation was a snap. The included CD has a no-frills 32 and 64 bit driver, as well as a control panel application.
Configuration
The control panel was quite useful, containing all sorts of features, many of which I have never seen on *any* PCI device short of a bus analyzer.
A plethora of board-level tests are available.
The PCI status screen shows all errors since boot. The TX error count is expected, and occurs only during POST.
Backups and restorations to/from the on-board SLC flash occur in ~60 seconds and can be performed with the drive active / in use.
!!!
That last one just punched me right in the face. 309k IOPS! To put this in perspective, see the following short list:
- Intel X25: ~60k
- Fusion-io ioDrive: ~100k
- Fusion-io ioDrive duo: ~200k
specs aren’t much better than
specs aren’t much better than a gigabyte i-ram except this device currently costs almost $2000, the i-ram cost $150 at release and currently ranges from $100-$150.
i-ram doesn’t get near the same iops but it has the same storage capacity. and gets 130mbs read/write so price wise i-ram is alittle more realisitc.
hardware ramdrives could be huge if companies actually put some effort into making an affordable current device. They always make it too soon or too late, and not very well.
better off buying a nand flash ssd for $99 and just replacing it every few years. Will be cheaper and faster in read/write/iops.
This isn’t a competitor for
This isn’t a competitor for SSD or the iRam. It’s a non-volatile ramdisk and has a very specialised use.
This device runs squarely up against STEC’s 8Gb ZeusRAM devices – and eats them for lunch because it’s not tied to a SATA/SAS bus AND because it’s about 1/3 the price.
As for usage: This is an ideal device for ZFS ZIL – only a few GB is needed and the faster you can commit it to the ZIL, the faster a server can signal “ready” back to the client on write requests.
As TFA said, this device is intended for Enterprise usage. I’d extend that and say anywhere a high end NAS is required, this is a good fit within that NAS.
I’d prefer to see PCIe x4 though, however it’s probably fast enough for the purposes at hand. 🙂
Is there a similar product
Is there a similar product for Notebooks?
Many yrs ago I saw an adapter for 2 SO-Dimm memory sticks that one could int one of the slots in a Notebook, where can I find these? (One could expand the memory, one would get 4 slots instead of the original 2.)
Sinc. Anders Nyberg